Maria-sama Ga Miteru 4th season episode 13 final

With the Valentine’s Day card event about to end, Sachiko goes to Yumi’s side and asks her to stand up, but before Yumi can do so, Touko barges in. Asking for forgiveness, Touko exclaims she wants to become Yumi’s petite sœur, much to everyone’s shock.
Yumi stands up in surprise, revealing the red Valentine’s day was hidden on her chair the entire time.

Interrupting the moment between Yumi and Touko, Mami asks what to do about the card as the event has now ended. Sachiko offers that while she had asked Yumi to stand up, the one who actually made Yumi get up was Touko, so she should have the card.

When the students have all gathered, Mami and the Yamayuri council present the Valentine Day event winners, Chisato and Touko, who respectively found Yoshino’s yellow card and Yumi’s red card, only Shimako’s white card was not found.
After the announcement, Yumi, Yoshino and Shimako hand out chocolates to all the participants.

The next day, the girls of the Yamayuri are curious what happened afterwards between Yumi and Touko, if they have made any date plans or called each other. When Yumi reveals she’s yet to meet with Touko, Yoshino dashes off to fetch her but Yumi stops her.

Heading to the theater club, Yumi runs into Touko there and the two make plans for their date, the former letting the latter decide where they’ll go. Glad to see Touko genuinely smile, Yumi reaches for her rosary but the two are interrupted by the theater’s club president.
Before she heads into the club, Touko asks Yumi to answer her plea to become Yumi’s petite sœur after their date.

The day of their date has arrived, the girls meet at the train station and to Yumi’s surprise they hop onto a bus after which they ride several trains, heading out of Tokyo into the countryside. On the train, Touko reveals they’re heading to a small town where her grandfather works at the local hospital.

Next to other issues, at some point Touko came to believe she was no longer needed by the Matsudaira family and ran away after an argument, the day she came to Yumi’s house.
As Touko talks, Yumi realizes that the girl is finally opening up to her and at the end of their journey lies Touko’s heart.

On the final bus ride, Touko shows a photo of her mother to Yumi, revealing she also attended Lillian high school for girls. After arriving at the hospital, the girls have lunch and meet with Touko’s grandfather who expresses his gratitude to Yumi, for he has heard much about her through Sachiko’s mother and asks Yumi to take good care of Touko.
While visiting the rest of the hospital, Touko says she feels small and can not fathom that which is bigger than herself, such as Yumi’s heart.

Heading out, Touko takes Yumi for a walk through the forest to a winding road near the mountainside.
There, Touko reveals that sixteen years ago a serious traffic collision between a car and truck occurred on that very road, costing the life of the car’s occupants save for their one month old baby, which survived and was saved from the wreckage.
Confessing she was that infant, Touko breaks down in tears and goes on to explain the Matsudaira family took her in.

Once again taking out the photo she had shown earlier, Touko points out another girl in it, explaining that girl was Touko’s birth mother.
While Touko had already known for a long time she was adopted, she only recently discovered that her birth mother and adoptive mother had been classmates at Lillian.

Although she loves her adoptive parents very much, Touko fears she has hurt them. When Yumi interrupts, asking why Touko is telling her all this, Touko manages to smile through the tears rolling down her cheeks, saying she wants Yumi to know everything about her.
The two girls share a warm embrace.

On the train ride heading back to Tokyo, Touko explains at first she didn’t like Yumi at all, because the traits she saw in Yumi and disapproved, she actually wanted to attain herself as well. Fearful she would never be chosen to become Yumi’s petite sœur, Touko ran away from her true feelings.
Reassuring Touko by tightly clasping her hand, Yumi thinks how she will properly make Touko her petite sœur as soon as they get back to school.
With that in mind, both girls doze off, hands intertwined.

What a terrific ending! While it had suspense, drama, sad moments, shocking revelations, they were all executed in typical “Maria-sama Ga Miteru” style, never exuberant or melodramatic, but gentle, slowly paced and realistically brought.

They wrapped up the Valentine’s Day event without spending any excess time on it, then focused the remainder of the episode on Yumi and Touko’s day out.
Finally accepting her true feelings, Touko reaches out to Yumi and reveals what had been troubling her for all this time, all rendered in carefully played out scenes that have a sense of realism due to their subdued nature.

We finally see the real Touko, who lays bare her true self and past to Yumi, to find Yumi’s warm embrace and tender care still waiting for her.

Even though I label it as yuri, it is at best implied and in the imagination of the viewer, which I am certainly guilty of. But that should never distract us from the fact “Maria-sama Ga Miteru” really excels in not just telling stories but showing us a cast of very likable and realistic characters. Building on all the past seasons, they slowly add to each character, making them evolve, allowing us to get to know them better so they become even more endearing.
Certainly so for Touko, who at first seems a cold, distant girl but is now revealed to be fragile like porcelain, and only after growing to accept her own self and true feelings can find warmth in Yumi’s loving embrace.

In all I loved this 4th season of “Maria-sama Ga Miteru” and am looking forward to more, with the novels still ongoing I can only hope more OAV episodes or seasons will come.
Like “Aria”, “Maria-sama Ga Miteru” expertly builds upon the previous story, letting its characters grow as we watch.
While centered mostly around the mail plot of Tuko becoming Yumi’s petite sœur, the other characters had plenty of screen time and if they lacked having their own subplots, they were potrayed well enough one could see how they had grown as well.

We could lament the lack of an epilogue that shows us events afterwards and full rosary ceremony, there was no real need as the whole episode made clear things are now well between Yumi and Touko.

Music throughout the series was great as always, though the more pop oriented opening tune took some getting used to, luckily it radiates positivity which fits the series.

Animation by Studio Deen is solid throughout, with a particular style for all the girls, and especially striking is the subdued palette of gentle and realistic colors used for the characters, hair colors and backgrounds.

From its first season on I always liked “Maria-sama Ga Miteru”, it’s wonderful to see this series becomes better with each season so I can only hope to see more in the future!